Father of Mine
by Flatlander Jr
Summary: Buffy and SG1. General Jack O'Neill discovers that the man who raised him wasn't his father. His biological father is 26 years younger than him.
1. The Oddness of Saturday

THE ODDNESS OF SATURDAY

DANIELLE FRANCES DUCREST

Disclaimer: _Stargate SG-1_ belongs to Gekko Corp., Double Secret Productions, MGM, and the Sci-Fi Channel. _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ belongs to Joss Whedon, Marti Noxon, Twentieth Century Fox Productions, Mutant Enemy, UPN, Kuzui Enterprises, and Sanddollar Television. Any copyright infringements were not intended. This story was written for entertainment and not for profit.

Spoilers are Timing: Takes place sometime in season eight of _Stargate SG-1_ and under two years after the series finale of _Buffy_. Spoilers are for late season seven of _Buffy _and loose spoilers for various _Buffy _and _SG-1 _episodes.

Author's Notes: The weird, broken car alarm is based on an experience of mine. A neighbor's car on the next block was making a really loud noise. I went over to see what could be making that weird noise and realized it was the car. I was afraid the thing was going to explode and kept my distance from it. The car wasn't running, and yet it sounded like the engine, the car alarm or a combination of the two was screaming. The car owners weren't home, so the two people who lived across the street and I just stared at the car for a while. It didn't blow up, so we all eventually left. I don't think it exploded; I didn't hear anything like that later on. It was really weird.

No poke was meant at Sedans. I don't know one type of car from the next unless my family owns one just like it (Do you have any idea how many Ford Taurus models from the last six years can be found in Louisiana?).

This series is an answer to a challenge I heard about through another fic that answered the same challenge. Thanks go to Mark D. for posting his fic and the challenge on cross-gate. I was intrigued, what can I say?

Here's the challenge. It was originally posted on jackfic by AnimeRonin. Thanks for the challenge!

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It's been done many times, in many ways, and for the most part it's been done nicely - Jack O'Neill is Xander's father. What I pose to you, though, is the reverse - Xander Harris is the true father of one Jack O'Neill.

(waits for screams of horror and howls of laughter to subside)

Done? Good - how this is, could in fact be purposeful temporal magic, or a one-night stand with Jack's mother in the past after a magical mix-up ala Willow or of the Hellmouth variety.

It's pretty much an open challenge, but there is only one rule - both father and son must meet with Hammond, explain things, and Hammond reach for his anti-acids, "I can tell this one's going to need a whole bottle."

Any takers?

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Summary: Strange didn't even cover this Saturday.

Part One of 'Father of Mine'.

-----

I blinked. "What?"

He stared into my eyes. He licked dry lips, took a breath, and repeated, "I'm your father."

It had been a weird day. I'd woken up at seven that morning, and it wasn't because of my alarm, which I hadn't set that day because it was a Saturday. It was because of the godawful noise coming from outside.

I'd stumbled out of bed, cursing, and grabbed the handgun I kept in a drawer before heading outside. As it turned out, nothing was amiss outside. Nothing of the dangerous variety, anyway. Nothing was on fire, there wasn't a single alien blowing things up or causing havoc in other ways, and there wasn't even a tornado. The sky was pleasantly calm and free of gray clouds. Nothing was wrong.

Still, something was making an awfully loud noise. I was still half-asleep so it took me a few minutes to assess the noise. It sounded like a car alarm stuck on one note, one really loud note. I scanned the street, my eyes darting from one car to the next. All of them looked fine, but I was certain that one of them was making the noise.

Some of my neighbors were stepping out of their houses to investigate the noise now. They came to the same conclusions as I did, and we all slowly approached the car that was making the noise. "It's my car!" one of them said. He looked awfully apologetic as he darted forward toward a slick, black Sedan. He opened the driver side door and slid behind the wheel.

"Don't!" I shouted, going into high alert. Now fully awake, I dashed forward intending to drag this moron away from something that sounded like it was going to explode.

I never made it to the car. The noise stopped, and everyone winced when their ears rang in the unexpected silence. "What the hell was that?" one of my other neighbors demanded. I was a little curious myself.

The car owner emerged from the car. He shot us all an apologetic grin. "Sorry about that," he said. "The car alarm sticks sometimes. It's never been this loud before, though. I was going to take it to the shop today to get it fixed, I swear."

"That was a car alarm?" I nearly shouted. I couldn't believe it. That hadn't sounded like a car alarm. It sounded like the car engine giving out a really loud warning, one that warned that it was about to blow and take out the entire neighborhood with it.

"Sorry," he said again, and I had to restrain myself from not punching him. Instead, I turned on my heels and stomped back to my house. I slammed closed every door between me and the bed, muttering that, out all of the neighborhoods I could have moved into all those years ago, I had to move into the one with the crazy cars.

That hadn't been the end of it. Oh, no. You'd think that after everything else Fate had pulled on me it would let me take one day off. Nope, not a chance for Brigadier General Jack O'Neill. I can't go one day without being molested, kidnapped, shot at, killed and revived, knocked out, or woken up way too early on a Saturday morning by a deranged car alarm.

I got a call from the base. At 7:30 AM. I'd managed to go back to sleep and had a nice, refreshing nap…not. I got five minutes before my phone rang. It was at moments like those that I hated being a general.

I contemplated the phone for a while. I wondered if I would get in trouble if I took the phone into the back yard and beat on it with a baseball bat until there was nothing left but little pieces of plastic and wire. Probably. Still glaring, I grabbed the phone and brought it up to my face. "What?" I barked into it.

"Um…Hello, sir." It was Sgt. Walter Davis. Evidently, he'd realized he'd called me at a bad time. Good. Now if only he could just get to the point instead of stammering out an apology. "Er…sorry to wake you up, sir…"

"Walter," I said, halting the stream of words. "What is it?"

"It's just, um, you're not going to believe this."

I moaned, sighed, and rubbed my face with my free hand. "Just say it, will you?"

"Okay. The head breakfast chef is refusing to serve breakfast. He says he can't work with the other breakfast chef. They started fighting earlier this morning, and from what I've heard, sir, the head chef now has the other chef tied up and is refusing to release him unless we agree to replace him. He's threatened to stab the other chef with a spatula if we don't agree to his demands."

I blinked. Then I blinked again. This day was just getting weirder. I blinked some more. "Could you repeat that?"

Walter sighed. "Colonel Carter thinks that the head chef, Captain Littrel, was exposed to some sort of alien pollen that SG-2 brought back accidentally on its last mission. Captain Littrel passed SG-2 in the hallway right after the team had returned from their mission, and Colonel Carter believes that the pollen was transferred then."

"Really? Alien pollen?"

"That's the theory, sir. Dr. Brightman is requesting that everyone who could have potentially been exposed to the pollen return to base. That includes you, sir."

I groaned and slowly sat up. This was just peachy. This had to happen, I was certain of it. Fate really hated me. That was the only explanation I was accepting.

"It is contagious?" I asked as I got to my feet and shuffled across the carpet to the closet. "Does the base need to go under quarantine?"

"No, sir. Colonel Carter and Dr. Brightman don't think it's infectious."

"So why does everyone have to come to the base?"

"It's just a precaution, sir."

"Precaution my ass," I muttered later on as I entered the parking lot at Cheyenne Mountain. Amazingly, that was all it ended up being, a precaution. Nothing happened. SG-2 had washed off the rest of the pollen, and Captain Littrel was the only one affected. All I ended up having to deal with was getting Littrel treated, then accepting his request for a transfer. It was too bad, too. His pancakes were to die for, or so I heard. I went straight for the fruit loops whenever I had breakfast at the base.

So, I was heading for the elevator, fully intent on leaving and not coming back for at least twelve hours if not a full twenty-four. Halfway there, I was stopped by my fun-lovin' Jaffa pal, Teal'c. Who was smiling.

I sighed. "Hi, Teal'c. What's up?"

He kept on smiling. I wondered what he could possible find enjoyable about the day's events. "I have arranged with Colonel Carter and Doctor Jackson to watch _The_ _Empire Strikes Back_ this afternoon. I was wondering if we could watch it at your house?"

"Huh?" I asked. After the morning I'd had, that was the last thing I expected him to say. I admit I should have; Teal'c had been talking about the movie for weeks now, and we'd all tried to avoid sitting down and watching it with him. It seemed he'd finally brought Carter and Daniel over to his side. He probably pulled the stoic look on them. Gets us every time.

Still, I'd expected him to say something completely different. Anything, really. Like when Walter called to tell me that the chef had gone postal. I hadn't expected that at all.

"That's all?" I asked, seeking to clarify. He raised an eyebrow. "You're not going to tell me something bizarre, like the showers are leaking blue jell-o, or the doc does a weekly strip tease in the infirmary? Or let's say, perhaps, that the Teletubbies have just come through the Stargate? 'Cause, honestly, I'd believe anything right now."

He had two eyebrows in the air now. "Are you well, O'Neill?"

I waited a minute, but Teal'c didn't deliver a punch line. He really was concerned. I let out a breath of relief. Thank God. Maybe the day was done being weird. Maybe.

"Sir!" I turned and watched as Siler jogged up to me. "There's something wrong with the showers in the locker rooms, sir. Blue jell-o appears to be dripping out of them instead of water."

I gawked at him. "Oh, you've gotta be kidding me!"

But, of course, he wasn't. It wasn't even the fault of the SGC and its assorted weirdness this time. It would seem that the canteen at NORAD was responsible. The chefs had made the mistake of serving blue jell-o for breakfast. Normally, this would not be a big deal, but this jell-o was the worst jell-o ever conceived. The General in charge at NORAD got so many complaints about the jell-o that he ordered the breakfast chef to dump it. The chef decided to dump it all in the toilet.

Somehow, this caused a muck-up in the water pipes. Don't ask me how. Maybe the pipes didn't like the jell-o, either. The whole mass of it ended up in the pipes of the SGC showers.

We called the plumbers. The bill they presented to me afterwards, detailing the cost of expenses in cleaning and replacing some of the pipes, made me groan. I resolved to make NORAD pay for it.

After that, I didn't even resist when Teal'c brought up the subject of Star Wars watching again. I just arranged a time, then I went home. Thankfully, nothing stopped me this time, and I made it all the way to the house. Once there, I promptly collapsed on my bed and was soon deeply asleep.

I woke to the doorbell. I felt a whole lot better and answered the door cheerfully. I think my attitude scared Daniel, Carter and Teal'c, but I didn't care. I was in a good mood. There was no way anything else would go wrong that day. If it did, I'd just ignore it. Nope, I wasn't going to put up with anything strange for the rest of the day.

To my surprise, _The Empire Strikes Back_ turned out not all bad. It felt good to sit and relax with my team, too, even though technically they weren't my team anymore. We hadn't done anything like this in months, not since before I'd become a general. It felt good.

To make it even sweeter, nothing weird happened that evening, just as I'd hoped. We watched the movie and afterwards sat around and argued about it. I couldn't help it; I smiled. Everything was right with the world. Finally.

The doorbell rang. Carter, Daniel and Teal'c paused and looked at me. "Are you expecting anyone, O'Neill?"

"No." My stomach did a flip-flop. I should have known it wouldn't last.

I stood up, put my beer can next to a few empty ones on the table, and went to the door. I paused a moment, closed my eyes and muttered, "What now?" Then I stepped forward and pulled the door open.

A kid I'd never seen before in my life stood on my porch. He wore a brown jacket and jeans, was approximately six foot two, and had brown hair and eye. One of his eyes was covered over by a black eye patch. On any other day, I may have thought the eye patch was a bit odd, but instead I thought it was the most normal thing I'd seen all day.

"Can I help you?" I asked, trying not to sound impatient.

The kid licked his lips. "Are-are you Jack O'Neill?"

I tilted my head. "Who wants to know?"

"I do," he replied. "My name is Xander. Xander Harris. I think I may be your father."

Down the street, the Sedan's car alarm went off again.


	2. A Reasonable Explanation, Please?

A REASONABLE EXPLANATION, PLEASE?

DANIELLE FRANCES DUCREST

Part Two of 'Father of Mine', nearly immediate sequel to 'The Oddness of Saturday'.

Summary: Xander offers proof.

-----

I plopped down on the couch. Opposite me was Xander Harris, who'd settled himself down in a chair. I said, "Okay. Let's go over this again. You're my what, now?"

You know the strangest thing about all this was? It wasn't the fact that this guy was claiming to be my father. It wasn't that he'd decided to tell me this on the oddest day of my life. The strangest thing about this was that I'd just finished watching _The Empire Strikes Back _with Daniel, Carter and Teal'c. The one where Darth Vader tells Luke he's his father. And, right after the movie ended, this guy comes to my door and tells me he's my father. It seemed a little weird. Just as little.

Daniel sat next to me on the couch. Carter sat in the recliner, and standing close to the door was Teal'c. They looked from me to the kid and back, questions in their eyes. I shrugged and gestured to Harris, indicating that it was his move.

Harris glanced around the room. "Could we maybe talk privately?"

"Uh…no." I wanted SG-1 to hear this to make sure I wasn't going crazy. Maybe the events of the day and the movie had gotten to me, and this was all just a hallucination.

"Okay. Like I said, I think I'm your father."

"What?" Carter and Daniel both exclaimed. They exchanged a bewildered glance before directing the look at me.

I threw up my hands as if to say, 'Don't look at me!'

In reply, they turned the look on Harris.

"How old are you, Xander Harris?" Teal'c asked. Even he sounded skeptical. I couldn't blame him. Even after everything we've been through, this was a little much.

Harris sighed. "I'm twenty-four."

Well, there you go. We'd just thrown his whole story out of proportion. "I'm older," I said smugly.

The look in his eye turned sad now. "Yeah, I know."

I blinked, taken aback. The look was a familiar one. It spoke of pain, the kind people felt when they've lost someone close to them. I saw it in the mirror every time I thought of Charlie. The kid had obviously lost someone, even if it wasn't me.

"How can you be Jack's father, then?" Daniel asked, asking the question on everyone's mind.

"Time travel." He shrugged as if to say, 'How else?'

"Time travel," Carter repeated, giving me a skeptical look. I returned it.

Daniel, meanwhile, looked like he was seriously considering it. I gave him a disbelieving look that he didn't see 'cause he was staring out into space. "Daniel?" I asked.

He blinked back to reality and looked at me, shrugging. "It could be true, Jack."

Oh, for crying out loud! "Oh, come on, Danny. Some twenty-four year-old kid comes here and claims to by _my_ father, and you fall for it?" Daniel wasn't supposed to be this gullible anymore. Nearly ten years traveling through the Stargate had toughened him up, or so I'd thought.

"What proof have you brought to demonstrate this relationship, Xander Harris?" Teal'c asked, sizing up Harris as if he were a bug. Go, Teal'c! Good to see someone else was thinking rationally.

Harris reached into his jacket and pulled out a folder. "This is part of it."

He held the folder out to me and I took it. I flipped it open and stared.

Daniel peered over my arm. "Who is that?"

I swallowed in a dry throat. "My mother." A picture of my mother at age twenty-two, to be exact, and not long before she became pregnant with me, if her flat stomach was any clue. She smiled up at me. Standing behind her with his arms wrapped around her waist was none other than Xander Harris, in all his black eye patch glory.

My mother had been dead for forty years. There was no way Harris could have known her. Which meant the pictures were forged. I turned furious eyes on Harris, but before I could bite off a word, he said, "There's more."

His eye pleaded with me for several long moments. Finally, I scowled. "Fine." I turned back to the fake photos. No, that wasn't the only one. There were a few others. Every single one was a color photo and was developed recently, judging by the dates printed on the backs. Every single color photo depicted my mother and Harris talking, laughing, hugging or holding each other, obviously very happy.

It was my mother. I knew that without reservation. I could remember that dimpled smile well enough, and I'd seen enough pictures of her at this age to know what she looked like. But I knew this couldn't be my mother. These pictures were not only in color, but they were taken in modern times. One picture showed an Outback Steakhouse in the background, and another featured a sign with movie titles that were in theatres this week. They also depicted the imposter posing as my mother in modern clothes.

"So you're good at Photoshop," I said, barely holding in my anger. "No takers."

"Jack," Daniel said, drawing my attention back to the folder. He pointed at a piece of paper poking out from underneath the photos.

I pulled it out and unfolded it. It was a letter, written in my mother's handwriting. Unlike the photos, the letter was weathered and yellowed, showing its age.

"She wrote you that, after she went back," said Harris. "She left it in a safe for me to get before I came here to talk to you. She knew you'd have trouble…accepting."

My grip tightened on the piece of paper. A corner of my mind wondered why I was even thinking of reading it. Hadn't I only ten minutes ago been on the verge of throwing this man out of my house? Still, the seeds of doubt had planted themselves. I knew just as well as Daniel that time travel was possible, but it didn't seem possible that something like this had actually happened.

There was only one way to find out, now. My only option was to read the letter.

Daniel lifted the photos from my lap and passed them on to Carter and Teal'c, asking them for their opinions. I cleared my throat and began to read quietly.

_Dear Jonathan,_

_Hello, son. If you're reading this, it means something has happened to me, and I'm not there to help Alex tell you your true heritage. I call him Alex even though everyone else calls him Xander, because I think Alex suits him no matter what he believes. I know it'll be hard to accept, Jack, especially considering your age differences, but what he tells you is the truth. He really is your biological father. Mitchell O'Neill may have raised you, but Alex is your true father._

_Remember when Grandpa O'Neill got cancer when you were six, and you had a nightmare about him dying before he could take you fishing? I found you in your room, crying. You told me that you didn't want him to die, and that you hoped neither Mitchell nor you got cancer because you thought it was awful and made all your hair fall out. Well, it may be a small consolation, but you don't have to worry about getting cancer anymore. Neither my family nor Xander's have had to worry about that. Kidney problems and liver disease, meanwhile, are a whole different story…_

I swallowed. As tightlipped as I was about my private life, no one alive knew about the night I'd told my mother about my fears concerning Grandpa O'Neill's death. The letter went on for several pages, recalling anecdotes from the past that no one could possibly know about but Kathleen O'Neill or me.

I finally looked up from the letter after what must have been half an hour. Daniel, Carter, Teal'c, and Harris were all in deep discussion over the photos and what the other proof could be that Harris had brought with him.

"How?" I asked. All conversation halted, and everyone turned to me. I met Harris' eye. No, I still didn't believe this man was my father, but I did believe that my mother wrote this letter. She could have been coerced into writing it. I wanted to find out.

Harris began to smile but quickly stopped. "Time travel, like I said." He paused and licked his lips as his eye slid from one face to another before settling back on mine. "Bottom line: magic is real. So are vampires, demons, witches, werewolves, you name it, I'll tell you if it's real or not."

"Leprechauns?" I inquired, deadpan.

His lips curled up a little. "Depends on who you ask. Personally, I think there's gotta be a few around somewhere or there wouldn't be so many stories about them, you know?"

I shook my head. This guy was nuts. Somehow, however, he'd gotten a hold of a letter from my mother. "So, magic is real," I said, my tone conveying just the right amount of disbelief and sarcasm. "What does that have to do with this?" I waved at the photos and the letter.

Harris took a deep breath. "I'm getting to that. There are people who fight demons and vampires. Some of them are ordinary humans. Others are souled vampires with intense crushes on hair gel. But, the primary defense against the demons is the Slayer, one girl chosen and gifted with super strength and speed healing and a bunch of other stuff to fight the demons, the vampires and the forces of darkness. One girl dies, the next is called. For thousands of years, there has been the Slayer. Before two years ago, there was only one at a time, and occasionally two. Nowadays, however, there are over a hundred Slayers worldwide, but that's a whole other story that I can tell you about some other time if you're interested."

"In 1952, the Slayer of the year was Heidi Pratt of Minnesota. Your grandfather, Steven Dresden, was her Watcher. Watchers train Slayers and provide them with the information they need to fight the bad guys. Steven and Kathleen often went with Heidi on stakeouts or patrols."

"'Stakeouts or patrols'?" I questioned, raising an eyebrow in classic Teal'c-style. Glancing at the big guy, I saw that he, too, had an eyebrow raised.

"Slayers have to patrol the graveyards regularly in case there are any newly-risen vamps in need of a good staking."

I nodded. "Of course." I waved a hand, grandly. "Please, continue."

Harris sighed. He looked a little irritated. Good. I'd hate to think he wasn't getting the hint that we weren't buying it. Still, he plowed on. Gotta give him points for consistency.

"One night, they got in a really intense fight with this warlock-"

"Warlock?" Daniel repeated, eyes wide in disbelief.

"Yep," replied Harris. "Anyway, the warlock was after the Slayer 'cause he was an evil warlock and that's what evil warlocks do. So they were fighting him, and the warlock threw this spell at Heidi, only she was able to duck just in time. The spell hit the wall and ricocheted onto Kathleen. Only 'cause it wasn't meant for her, since it had been meant for someone with the mark of a Slayer, it didn't work exactly right. The spell was meant to displace Heidi a hundred years into the future on some deserted island in the Pacific. Instead, it sent Kathleen a little under fifty-four years into the future and deposited her in Cleveland, where the modern-day Slayer HQ can be found."

"Oh, come on!" Carter burst. All eyes turned to her. "Magic doesn't exist. Neither do vampires or demons or Slayers! The idea is ludicrous!"

"I must concur," said Teal'c. "In all the places I have been, I have never seen the creatures that Xander Harris speaks of. However, it is possible that there is something posing as these vampires and demons."

I nodded. Teal'c's explanation made a whole lot more sense. Someone or something could be posing as a vampire or demon or whatever. After all, the Goa'uld posed as gods, and billions of people spread throughout the universe believed them.

"Believe me, there is no posing involved," Harris said, bitterly. "Vampires and demons are real. A real, factual vampire turned my best friend into a vampire. I staked him. I watched him crumble to dust right in front of my eyes. You can't tell me that none of that was real."

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "I'm not explaining this very well. We had a system worked out for this - telling people about the assorted nasties - and it looks like I've forgotten to use it. It hasn't been a good week. It's been six days since I had to say goodbye to Kathleen and we sent her back to her time, and five days ago I found out I had a son who was over twice my age. I hopped the first plane here as soon as we found out where I could find him. I've only been in town for a few hours." He met my eyes. "I know you don't believe me, but I'm telling the truth. I've got some friends coming into Colorado Springs on Monday that can help corroborate my story. Could you please meet with them?"

"I'll think about it," I said. "Got a number I can call?"

He pulled a card out of his wallet and handed it to me. On one side were an address and phone number for a place in Cleveland. Hand written on the back was another number, this one for a cell phone.

Harris stood up. "I'll submit to any test you want to run," he promised. "Just, don't dismiss this, okay?"

I only raised my eyebrows.

"Right," he said. "I'll just…go now."

Teal'c escorted him to the door. Once the Jaffa returned to the living room, I leaned back in my seat and looked at my team. "So, what do you guys think?"

"Well, he seems to believe what he's saying," Daniel offered.

"Yeah." I frowned down at the letter I still held. "This letter was written by my mother."

"Are you sure, sir?" Carter asked.

I nodded. "Yeah. I'm sure. Which leaves one question: how could it? Which Harris so did not answer."

"Alien technology?" Daniel shrugged. "What else could it be, anyway? We know magic doesn't exist, and the only means of time travel we've come across have been through alien artifacts."

"But what about vampires and demons?" Carter asked him. "Why tell us such a ridiculous story?"

"Because it's a ridiculous claim?" I offered. I had no idea what Harris could be after. Why _had _he bothered telling us all that? Was it a distraction? A distraction from what?

None of it made any sense. Not the pictures, not the letter, not the explanation. I collected the photos and the letter and placed them back into the folder. I handed it to Carter along with the business card. "I want to know everything you can find on Harris, this address, the photos, everything. We don't know what Harris wants; I want to find out."

"Yes, sir," Carter said, standing and heading for the door.

"I will assist you, Colonel Carter," Teal'c volunteered before following her outside.

"So," Daniel said after they'd left. "What are we going to do? What are you going to do?"

I got to my feet. What was I going to do? "I'm going to look in the attic."

"The attic?" he repeated, puzzled. "Why the attic?"

"I'm going to check a few things of my mom's. Just in case."


	3. A Venture to the Attic

A VENTURE TO THE ATTIC

Part Three of 'Father of Mine', nearly immediate sequel to 'A Reasonable Explanation, Please?'.

Summary: Daniel and Jack look for answers. Daniel gets a cold.

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'Kinda dusty' did not describe the thick coatings of dust that could be found in my attic. To say that I went up there often would be grossly inaccurate, too. Still, I was reasonably sure I remembered where I put those things of my mother's that I'd kept all these years.

I wasn't sure what I expected to find. A stake, perhaps? Love potion number nine? A lamp with a genie inside? I didn't know, but I'd find out soon enough.

I turned the overhead light on before proceeding inside. My shoes kicked up clouds of dust. Behind me, I heard a sneeze. Daniel's allergies were getting the best of him.

He sniffled. "So, what are we looking for?"

"A hope chest." It was a family heirloom, so to speak. If I had a sister, it would have been passed on to her.

I walked across the room and moved a few boxes out of the way. Behind them and leaning against the wall was the chest, just as I remembered it, if a little dustier. It was a simple, one-compartment chest, and it was stained a dark brown.

I removed a few boxes placed on top of it and carefully lifted the lid. Inside were a few more family heirlooms. There were two tablecloths and a set of matching, embroidered napkins that my grandmother had made. They were spread out on top. I swallowed. They'd all been Sara's favorites. I took them out and handed them to Daniel. "Hold these for a moment, would you?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever," he muttered.

I turned back to the chest. On the right side was a stack of photo albums, cards, and various other memorabilia such as a few letters written between my parents and a copy of an invitation to their wedding in 1952…wait. 1952? I checked the invitation again, but the date hadn't changed. "Huh."

"What?" Danny asked.

"My parents were married in 1952."

"So?"

"The date is for six months before I was born." I swallowed. I'd thought they were married in 1950, over two years before my birthday. It looked like Mitchell O'Neill may not be my biological father after all. That didn't mean Xander was. No way in hell could a twenty-four year old be my father.

"It doesn't have to mean anything," Daniel said, trying to be reassuring. "It could just mean that your parents didn't wait until after they were married before…"

"Maybe." I opened one of the albums and leafed through it. Daniel grabbed the other one and did likewise. The photos showed various members of my family and our friends doing ordinary things. Not a single one showed Harris.

"Hello…" said Daniel. I glanced at him in time to see him stoop and pick up a photo that had fallen out of his album. He sneezed on his way back up. "Jack, look at this."

I took the photo from him and stared. "No way…" I murmured. It was a picture of Xander Harris, eye patch and all. He had posed for the camera and was smiling broadly. The picture had faded with time, but it was still bright compared to the black and white and colored photos in the albums. The edges were bent out of shape from being fingered often.

"So they did know each other," Daniel said, softly. He looked and sounded as incredulous as I felt.

"Maybe," I said, glaring at him. I didn't want to admit that I was starting to believe it, too. Someone could have come up here and placed the photo in the album, though the dust layers would suggest otherwise. This whole situation was just too bizarre to take at face value.

I pocketed the photo and returned to my search. The left side of the chest held several boxes. One box contained a few expensive pieces of jewelry. Among them, I counted three crosses; one was made of silver, another iron, and a third was intricately carved gold. I could vaguely remember my mother wearing the silver one, but the other two were unfamiliar. A second box contained a small collection of odd coins I'd put together back when I was a kid, and within a third box were more cards, letters and other documents.

At the bottom of the chest was a forth box. Unlike the other boxes, which were cardboard, this one was made of tin, and it was one the largest of the whole bunch. I pulled it out carefully, pried open the tight lid and set it aside. There were several things inside the box. They all seemed to be vampire-fighting implements.

Okay, this was freaky. There were, surprise, two wooden stakes with very sharp tips. There was also a bottle of holy water. Beneath the stakes was a knife made of what appeared to be silver.

"What the-?" How the hell had I missed these things when I'd packed this thing all those years ago? I frowned, concentrating, and within a few moments the memory returned to me. My mother had always kept this tin in the kitchen while I was growing up. I knew because I'd found it one day while looking for cookies, and she'd told me that the box must stay in the cupboard and never be opened. I'd made plans to sneak back and look at it later, but I'd ended up getting sidetracked in kid stuff and forgotten about it. Years later, when I packed the hope chest, I'd placed it in here without looking in it. All I'd cared about at the time was that it was one of my mother's things.

"They're stakes," Daniel said.

"Uh-huh."

"Wooden stakes."

"Yep."

"For killing vampires?"

I shrugged. "I have no idea." Though it certainly looked that way, didn't it? The photo, the slaying kit - one would almost suspect that one was being set up, but I was beginning to believe that wasn't the case. Shit.

Something glinted in the light from the overhead. I pushed the knife, stakes, and holy water aside and spotted something small and shiny hidden in a corner of the tin. I pulled it out. It was a small silver five-pointed star. A hole had been drilled through the uppermost point wide enough to pass a chain through it.

Daniel leaned over for a closer look, and some dust that had mingled in his hair fell on my shoulder. I brushed it off distractedly. "What's that?" he asked.

"No idea," I responded. Like the other things in the box, I'd never seen it before. The sides of the uppermost point flashed. "Woah!" The right side of the point turned yellow and the left side turned blue. The point returned to its original silver, and then the sides of an adjacent point flashed blue and yellow. The lights moved from point to point in a counter-clockwise rotation. After the lights reached the fifth point, the lights disappeared completely. The star pendant was once again completely silver.

"What was that?" Daniel demanded.

"That is a very good question." I stood up and dropped the pendant in the pocket with the photo. I replaced everything else back in the chest, lifted the tin box and motioned to the door. "Come on. Let's see if Carter can make some sense out of it."

Daniel sneezed again. "Sounds good to me."

We headed for the door with me in the lead. I opened the door and stepped out…

…onto a marble floor?

"What the crap!"

"Uh, Jack? Did the decorators come and remodel your stairwell while we were in the attic?"

"That would be a big fat no, Danny."

Instead of the stairs that would take us down from the attic, we stood at one end of a three-story high hall crafted of creamy marble. To the left and the right were two large rooms containing rows upon rows of bookcases. Support columns, which held aloft the hall's vaulted ceiling, periodically broke up our view of the rooms. Out-of-sight windows beneath the hall's roof provided the only light; there were lanterns nailed to the columns, but they were unlit.

We stood at one end of the long hall. I whirled around. Behind us was a blank marble wall. The door had disappeared.

"Great," I muttered. "Just great." It was just another addition to all the weird crap that had happened already. What next? A Godzilla vs. King Kong fight worthy of a truly awful B-rated movie?

A breeze blew through the long corridor. I turned away from the wall when I heard a growl.

Daniel's eyes were wide and staring down the hall. "Oh, that can't be good."


	4. Intruders in the Library

INTRUDERS IN THE LIBRARY

Part Four of 'Father of Mine', immediate sequel to 'A Venture to the Attic'.

Summary: Jack and Daniel find themselves in a life-and-death situation. They are absolutely stunned. Not.

-----

This really wasn't a good day. That's the thought that crossed my mind as I listened to the very creepy growls resound off the walls and echo near the ceiling. The breeze blew through the hall again. After it died down, five beings appeared out of nowhere, standing in various positions along the floor.

"Oh, crap!"

Whatever they were, they didn't look friendly. They weren't human, either. They looked like alien rhinos. Their skin was grayish-black and five horns protruded from their bald scalps. They wore very thick leather armor. Did I mention the swords? Each…thing held a full-sized sword in one hand and a short sword in the other. Oh, and they were charging at us with previously mentioned swords raised.

I grabbed Daniel's arm and yanked him after me as I raced for the room to the left, barely missing a swing from the blade of the closest rhino thing. "We've really gotta get out of here!" I yelled over the growls.

"And go where?" Daniel asked, shouting. We entered an isle between two bookcases. I let go of Daniel's arm and the two of us took off down the isle.

"Anywhere!" I yelled back.

We reached the end of the isle and turned right before racing down the length of the left wall, skirting around tables positioned against said wall. I glanced down the isles as we ran past them. I could see three of the things still in the central hallway. One of them spotted us and growled.

One of his friends suddenly emerged from between two of the cases ahead of us, blocking our path. We hastily skidded to a stop three feet away from him. The thing growled and swung his bigger blade. I ducked, pulling Daniel down with me. I reached over Danny and grabbed the closest chair pushed beneath a table. I lifted it and swung it around, just in time to use the bottom half of the chair as a shield from a vicious double swing of the two blades.

The thing pulled back his shorter sword before swinging it in a horizontal arch. The sword's blade cleanly sliced through all four legs of the chair. The legs dropped and hit the underside of the chair before sliding off of the wooden surface and onto the floor.

"Oh, crap." I stared at the now legless chair I held in my hands.

I brought the chair up again to block the return swing of the blade. He swung his longer blade in a long downward stroke. The blade easily cleaved the chair completely in two. I barely managed to jump out of the way to avoid getting sliced as well.

Daniel jumped to his feet. With a yell, he drove one of the severed table legs into the thing's stomach.

The rhino-thing screamed. It didn't sound anything like a screaming rhino. It was more reminiscent of a canary. The thing staggered back a few feet, then disappeared as mysteriously as it had appeared. One minute I was staring at his bleeding stomach, and the next I was staring at the far wall of the building. This time, though, it left its weapons behind. The swords clattered to the floor.

I looked from the empty space to Danny. I don't know what surprised me more, that the gray leather thing had just disappeared into thin air, or that Daniel had it in him. Give the guy a handgun and point him at a Jaffa and he'd back you up, but I'd never seen him stab a rhino-thing with a table leg before. "You okay?"

Daniel was panting. He blinked a few times before nodding. "Yeah."

"You sure?"

"No. Can we get out of here?"

A growl reminded me that we had more company on the way. "Right."

I stepped forward and picked the swords off the floor. I handed the longer sword to Daniel. Danny took it dubiously. "Do you know how to use that?" he asked me, nodding to the short sword.

"I took some fencing in college," I said. Granted, that wasn't the same thing and we both knew it. "You?"

"Not a clue," he said.

Two of the remaining things were fast approaching from behind us. The other two appeared from between two rows ahead of us and hurried in our direction. Daniel and I turned right and raced down an isle and back into the central hall. We were closer to the opposite end of the building now, and I could see a door in the wall at that end.

"There!" I shouted. We raced for the door. The rhino-things ran back out into the hall and steadily gained on us with swords raised. We didn't have a whole lot of time. That door had better be unlocked.

Daniel got there first. He turned the handle and I let out a very heartfelt, "Yes!" when the door swung inward. We ran through it and I pushed it closed, just barely avoiding a sword thrust.

As soon as the door banged closed, the swords in our hands vanished, and I found myself clutching air. I lifted my empty hand to my face, staring. "What the hell…?" I exclaimed.

"Better yet, where the hell are we now?" Daniel wondered.

There was a carpet beneath our feet. From all appearances, we were in the corridor of a house, though it still wasn't mine.

"A-hem," someone said from behind me. I turned around and took a step back as I came face-to-face with a teenage girl. She had straight brown hair that came down past her shoulders. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and she was glaring at us. "Who are you and what are you doing in this house?"

"Who are you?" I asked.

She glared some more. "I asked first."

Daniel stepped forward, pushing me a little to the side. I grunted in annoyance but, of course, he ignored me. "I'm Dr. Daniel Jackson, and this is General Jack O'Neill."

"US Air Force. Maybe you've heard of us," I added. We were pretty much known no matter what part of the universe we were in, so it was a good bet that she had heard of us.

"Air Force, huh? And…what are you doing here?"

"We don't know," Daniel butted in just as I opened my mouth. "We came through this door." He pointed to it with his thumb.

Her eyes flicked to the door and widened. "You came through that door?"

Daniel and I exchanged a look. "Yeah?" I questioned, drawing out the word as long as I could.

She squealed. We both jumped. "Oh, my God!" she exclaimed. I winced and rubbed my ear, and I saw Danny grit his teeth. "How'd you do it?" she asked us, literally bouncing now. "We've been trying for weeks to get that door open! What's behind it? Is it something icky?"

"You could say that," I said, sarcastically. I eyed her uncertainly. This girl was freaking me out more than the things we'd just left behind. Was it really possible for anyone to be so…okay, words failed to describe the huge amounts of energy radiating off of this girl.

She turned and walked down the hall a short way; there, she turned and leaned down a stairwell. "Willow! Giles! The intruder guys are up here! And you won't believe how they got here!"

"Uh, excuse me, miss…but what's your name? And could you tell us where exactly we are?" Thank you, Daniel! Always the diplomat, always with something handy to say.

"Oh!" She smiled. "I'm Dawn Summers, and you're in Cleveland."

What?

Daniel turned to me, and I to him. Together, we said, "Cleveland?"


	5. Welcome to Headquarters

WELCOME TO HEADQUARTERS

Part Five of 'Father of Mine', immediate sequel to 'Intruders in the Library'.

Summary: Jack and Daniel meet the gang. Well, part of it.

Footsteps pounded up the stairs, and a brilliant head of auburn hair appeared. The hair twirled and revealed green eyes in a confused face. Her gaze slid over me and Daniel and her entire body posture went from cautious to alert. I could have sworn her eyes turned black for a minute before returning to normal. Hopefully, it was a trick of the light.

"Dawn, what...?" she asked.

A man appeared behind the redhead. He was older than the women by quite a number of years, if the wrinkles in his face and the gray strands in his hair were any indication. "Who are you?" he asked, or rather demanded, his face just as stony as the red head's.

"They said they're with the Air Force," Summers said, still grinning. She started to bounce again. "They got here through the door!" She pointed at the door behind Daniel and me. I backed up a step to avoid losing an eye à la fingernail.

The redhead stared from Dawn to me to the door and back.

"That door? Are you sure?" the older man asked.

A smile to match Summers' own spread out across the redhead's face, and then she let out her own ear-piercing squeal. I was pleased to see that Danny and I weren't the only men affected by it.

"Could someone please tell me what the hell is going on here?" I asked as politely as I could manage, which wasn't much. I got touchy when I was almost killed by rhinos with swords. "And could someone please explain how the hell we could be in Cleveland?"

"Jack." Daniel winced. Apparently, I wasn't helping his ears any after hearing those shrieks. Sorry, Danny.

He stepped around me and held out a hand. "Hi. I'm Dr. Daniel Jackson, and this is General Jack O'Neill. Could you please tell us what you know about how we got here?"

I stared at his back, not for the first time wondering how the guy could have so much patience.

"Oh." The man shook Daniel's hand. "I'm Rupert Giles."

The redhead waved. "Willow Rosenburg."

Summers stared at me with jaw agape.

"What now?" I asked.

"Jack O'Neill?"

Rosenburg and Giles' eyes widened again. Wonderful. It's so nice to know they found something about this situation so amazing as to be rendered speechless.

"Yeah?" I hoped my voice conveyed just how angry I felt.

"You're Xander's son," Rosenburg said, "aren't you?"

"Oh, dear Lord," said Giles.

"Okay, this is creepy," Daniel muttered to me.

"You're telling me?" I muttered back. Not this again! Not that I was surprised, mind you. Of course this would have something to do with Harris.

"You know Xander Harris?" asked Danny.

"Yeah! We're his friends," Rosenburg replied. "This is really weird. Does Xander know you guys are here? Wait, did he tell you yet? I guess he did, since from the way you were both acting, it looked like you knew who we were talking about. Did he tell you?"

"You mean, did he tell me that he was my father? Yeah, he did. I took it with a grain of salt. So, what's the deal here? I mean, your friend shows up at my house, claiming to be related to me. Then we're attacked by rhinos, and then we wind up here. Please enlighten us to the reasons why."

"Oh, of course," Giles said. "Though, perhaps we could take this discussion down to the living room?"

I glanced at Daniel, who shrugged. With a sigh, I nodded. "Lead the way, Rupe."

As it turned out, we were in a house. A big house, but a house. How big? There were nine doors on the second floor. The door we'd come through was actually on the third floor, which was also known as 'the lower attic floor'. From what I could see, the entire place was fully furnished with inexpensive pieces. The living room on the first floor was a large room fitted out with three couches, two recliners, a table with ten chairs, a book case, and a television with - ooh, nice - both an X-Box and a Playstation 2.

From what I could see, the entire house was empty except for Giles, Rosenburg and Summers. It seemed like an awful lot of house for such a small number of people. Maybe they liked listening to the echoes produced by all the open spaces.

We all took our seats on various couches and chairs. I took one of the recliners, and Danny sat next to me on a couch. Summers and Rosenburg plopped down on the middle couch and Giles took a seat near them on the third couch.

"So," Giles began. "We've established that you are both with the military, and that you arrived through the door upstairs."

"Yes, we have," I agreed. "What we have yet to establish is how we're in Cleveland when we weren't even near here a half an hour ago."

"And exactly where were you? Colorado Springs, correct?" asked Giles.

"That's right," Daniel replied.

"Well..." Te Englishman took his glasses off and cleaned them. "...from your method of arrival, I'd say that you stumbled into some sort of spatial portal that led from Colorado to this house."

I asked, "Spatial portal? Would you mind explaining that one?"

Rosenburg replied, "It's a type of spell that gets you from point a to point c without bothering to pass through point b. One minute, you could be walking out the front door of your house, and then you find yourself walking into the President's bathroom in the White House." Her eyes widened and she smiled nervously. "Not that that's ever happened to any of us, though it would be kind of funny...er, that is, if we were into practical jokes. Which we aren't. We wouldn't do it to hurt the President, either. We're the good guys."

I exchanged a look with Danny. He asked, "Harris mentioned spells and all that, too. You wouldn't happen to have any proof, would you?"

Giles, Summers and Rosenburg looked at each other. "You did get here through a spell," Summers pointed out. "And that could only have happened through magic."

"Not necessarily," I said. I'd seen half a dozen technologies capable of transporting people over great distances in a matter of seconds. Just because these people thought it was magic didn't make it so. It could be an advanced piece of technology that only seemed to be magic.

Rosenburg pointed at the table in the corner. "Lift." One of the chairs pulled itself away from the table, turned around and rose about a foot into the air. Daniel and I watched, jaws slack, as the chair floated across the room and landed in front of us.

I leaned forward and ran a hand above and below the chair, checking for strings. As far as I could tell, it was solid wood. I leaned back.

I folded my arms. "That all you got?" I was going to be stubborn about this. Yeah, the chair thing was cool, but it so did not prove that magic existed.

Rosenburg gave me a look. "Okay."

She waved a hand. "**Incidere (Buffy vs. Dracula)."**

The chair caught on fire. One minute, it was a plain, ordinary wood chair; the next, red flames licked along its legs, seat and back. The flames were so close to my skin that I could feel the heat.

"What the hell?" I exclaimed, and scooted over on the sofa.

She smirked. Why, that little…

"I do say, Willow, we could have used that chair," said Giles.

He didn't look at all sorry that I was nearly burned to death. No one else looked concerned, either, not even Danny. Okay, so I wasn't that close to the chair, but geez, she could have given me a little warning.

The fire burned the chair to a small pile of ash in a matter of seconds before the flames dyed out. That was a little worrying; no fire should have left ash in its stead that quickly. Another oddity was that the hardwood floor had been completely untouched by the flames.

"How did you do that?" Daniel asked.

Her smirked broadened. "Magic." She pointed a finger at the heap **of gray ash. "."**

The ash rose into the air and, somehow, don't ask me how, reformed into the chair. In two minutes, the same chair as before was placed before me.

I stared at it and reached out to touch it. I felt solid wood beneath my fingers.

It could have been an illusion produced by a hologram, and I'd only thought I'd felt the heat of flames. I'd only thought the chair was burned out and then repaired again…and…

Ah, hell. I didn't know any aliens with holographic technology that good. Maybe the Ancients could have managed it, but I didn't know that for sure.

"Wow." It seemed to be the only thing I could think of to say.

"Well, that's something new," said Daniel.

I glanced at him. "It is?"

"Yeah, I do believe it is."

"We've never come across it before?"

"No, can't say we have."

I nodded. "Yeah, that's what I'd thought." I turned back to stare at the chair. "Wow."

"Wow," agreed Daniel.

"Ditto," said Summers. "I didn't know you could do that, Willow!"

Rosenburg shrugged and smiled shyly. "It's not dark," she said, looking at Giles. "It takes a fair amount of concentration, sure, and it's a lot harder to do on flesh, but…"

They kept talking, but it started to sound like technobabble - spellbabble? - and I had other things on my mind.

I was finally accepting it. Sure, that could have been caused by some sort of advanced hovering technology, but...magic wasn't all that farfetched after everything I'd seen. Still, it was mind blowing. And if magic was real, were vampires and all that stuff about Slayers real, too? How could all those things - demons, vampires, evil warlocks - have existed for so long on Earth without me noticing? I've seen a lot of sick things in my life, but I'd never seen any evidence that those creatures were real. At least, I didn't think so. If what these people said was true, the evidence had been buried beneath my nose my entire life. Just how much had I missed?

That wasn't even the half of it. If demons and magic were real, did that mean that everything else Harris told me was true? My mother had seemed to think so, if the letter was anything to go by. But how could Xander Harris be my father? Screw time travel. He was just a kid! He was born only a few years before Charlie!

Daniel asked many rapid-fired questions about magic, spells, demons and whatnot. I listened but didn't say anything. It would seem that Harris and his circle of friends fought demons and their circle of friends on a regular basis. And oh, yes, they all knew Kathleen Dresden, my mother. They didn't mention her much, though. Every time one of them did, they glanced at me before changing the subject.

It wasn't long before the conversation returned to how Danny and I had gotten there.

"Actually, we didn't come directly here. We passed through what looked like a library," Daniel said.

"A library?" Giles leaned forward. "What sort of library? What did it look like?"

"Marble, lots of bookshelves," I said. "Loved the welcoming committee. Five gray, ugly things. Guess they must have been demons, if what you say is true."

"The Guardians!" Giles looked like Daniel when the space monkey had just discovered some all-important dig site. He turned to Rosenburg and Summers. "It's the Council Library! I'd thought it was a part of the old headquarters in London, but it must actually be in some sort of pocket universe. This is splendid news!"

"You mean that door in the attic leads to the place where the Old Council kept all their books?" Summers had a gleam in her eye now. "Yes!"

Rosenburg nodded. "It makes sense. I mean, when we cast that spell that made this the official site of the new Watcher Headquarters, we gained a new door in our attic. I wonder why we haven't been able to get in, though?"

"We, ah, have to say the password," Giles said. "It changes fairly regularly. I'd have to check to see what it could be now. That should be simple enough."

"But how did we get here?" Daniel asked. "I mean, Jack and I were in his attic, and then we left and found ourselves in the library, and then we came here. How?"

"Yes, that is still a mystery," said Giles. "If you could tell us what the two of you were doing right before you arrived in the library, we might be able to pinpoint how it all happened."

I raised an index finger. "While you're doing that, could I use your phone?" It would be a simple matter of getting a flight, and the sooner I was back on familiar territory, the better I would feel. Then I could find out what Carter and Teal'c had managed to dig up on Harris, and then I'd figure out where to go from there.

Summers jumped up from her seat. "I'll show you." She smiled slightly at me as I got to my feet.

I cast a warning glance at Daniel. He rolled his eyes at me. The nerve! He wasn't going to get anything from me for Christmas this year. I glared at him before turning and following the kid out of the room.

She led me to the kitchen. It was large, big surprise there, with two fridges and two stoves, etc. The phone was corded and hung from the wall next to a door that led outside. Several framed pictures were arranged around the telephone. I wondered if I would find even more pictures of my mother. I wasn't disappointed.

Twelve photos were arranged on the small space. She was in three of them. One photo placed just above the telephone showed a large group of people. Included in the group were Rosenburg, Giles, Summers, Harris and my mom. My mouth quirked a bit. She had a hand posed behind Summers' head in the classic bunny ears position. Harris, who stood to my mother's other side, was busy tickling a woman with a mane of blonde hair. Though the blonde was trying to get away from Harris, big grins were spread across both of their faces.

The second picture showed Harris and my mom posing for the camera. The third featured my mom with Summers and the blonde, all with arms around each other's shoulders.

"We all miss her," said Summers. She stood a few feet away. "She was here for three months."

Three months? My mother was here for three whole months? I swallowed. "What'd she do? Did she help with the demon slaying or whatnot?"

"Yeah, she did. She helped out a lot. All that Watcher training really paid off."

I turned to her, puzzled. "Watcher training? Aren't those the guys that train the Slayers?" Didn't they say something about this house being the new Watcher Headquarters?

Summers nodded. "Kathleen was being trained as a Watcher back in 1952. Guess you didn't know that, huh? I'm not surprised, really. She didn't seem like she liked it much, and we did some research after she went back to her time to see if she'd become a Watcher. We couldn't find any records of her having graduated from the Academy, so I guess she didn't become one after all."

I blinked. "There's an academy?"

She nodded. "Mm-hmm. Or at least, there was, before the old council got blown up."

My eyebrows skyrocketed. "Blown up?"

Summers bit her lip. "Uh, it's really a long story. We didn't do it."

"Right. Y'know, I think I'm going to make that phone call now."

She smiled weakly. "Right. I'll just go." She hesitated. "Look, if you ever want to talk, you can trust us. Kath was my best friend."

I shifted and glanced at the photos. "Uh…thanks."

She smiled again and headed back to the living room.

I lifted the phone off the receiver and dialed Carter's cell phone. I glanced at my watch and winced. It was one thirty in the morning.

She answered on the third ring. "Hi, Carter, it's me," I said.

"Oh, hi, sir." She sounded wide awake, which meant she'd been working straight for the two hours after she'd left my house. "Teal'c and I have been running a few searches on Harris. We've found a few interesting things so far."

"Oh?"

"For one thing, Alexander LaVelle Harris was born in 1981 in Sunnydale, California."

"Sunnydale?" The name rang a bell, though I couldn't quite remember where I'd heard it.

"Yes, sir. Sunnydale was reduced to a crater by an earthquake a year ago."

"Right. They had that on the news. Only a few people were killed because the townspeople got advanced warning."

"Yes, sir. Only, we don't think they did."

I glanced out the kitchen door to the hall. I could hear the others talking, and as far as I could tell, no one was listening in. "What do you mean, exactly?" I asked Carter.

"Well, sir, the townspeople were evacuating the place for weeks before the earthquake. All of the hotels in surrounding areas were being overbooked by Sunnydale evacuees. No one was sure why they were leaving, either. Not even evacuees interviewed by local newspapers knew why they were leaving the town, but they didn't plan to go back any time soon."

That was definitely weird. "What else have you found?"

"Just the normal stuff so far, sir. Harris graduated with the Class of 1999 from Sunnydale High School, no college. In 2000, he was employed by one of the local construction companies until March of 2003 when the company closed down and left town with everyone else."

"Any idea how he lost an eye?"

"Not yet, sir, but we'll keep searching."

"Great. Thanks, Carter. Get some sleep first."

There was silence for a moment, then Carter said, "Sir, what do you think Harris is trying to get at? Do you think he's trying to get information about the Stargate Program?"

I looked back up at the photos and sighed. "Actually, there's a good possibility that he's telling the truth."

There was silence on the line for a moment. "Sir?" she asked.

"A lot of things have happened. Daniel and I, er, we're not actually in Colorado Springs anymore."

"What? Where are you, sir?"

"Apparently, we're in Cleveland, and unless I've finally gone bonkers, we got here through magic."

"You're in Cleveland?" she repeated. "But-it's only been a few hours, sir. How did you get there so quickly?"

"Like I said, Carter: magic."

She was frustrated now. I could just see her throwing her hands up in the air. "Sir-"

"Trust me, Carter. We've gotten proof, both to support the whole magic thing and to suggest that Xander Harris could be my biological father. I'll tell you all about it as soon as Daniel and I get back to Colorado."

"If you say so, sir," she said dubiously. She probably thought I'd lost it. Not that I blamed her; I did sound a bit loony.

"See ya later, Carter. Get some sleep, and then I want you to look up whatever you can on Rupert Giles, Willow Rosenburg and Dawn Summers."

"Yes, sir."

I called the operator and got the number for the airport. I booked two seats on the next available flight to Colorado Springs, and then I called a taxi.

I walked back into the living room to find four smiling people. "We think we know how to get back to Colorado Springs." Rosenburg said, looking very smug.

I gave Daniel a sideways look. "So do I. It's called modern transportation."

She waved an arm. "This is way faster. We think that all you have to do is go back the way you came."

I stared at them. "What? And face those demon things again? Hell, no!"

"Oh, you don't have to worry about them," Summers said. "They only attacked you because you were trespassing. But if Giles says the password, we'll be able to walk through the Library completely unhindered. We think."

Uh-huh. I'd believe that when I saw it. "'We?'" She shrugged. "So we go to the library. Then what?"

"We believe that the star pendant you found in your attic might be the key," responded Giles. "Your mother must have used it to assist with research into demons when she and her father worked with their Slayer. When you touched the pendant, you opened a doorway to the Council Library. If you're outside the library, the doorway leads into the library, but if you activate the door from within the library, you create a passageway to your original location. In your case, your original location would be your house in Colorado Springs."

"If you touch the pendant while you're standing inside the library, a passageway will form that leads to your attic," translated Daniel.

I pulled the little pendant in question out of my pocket. "This thing really activated a spell?"

"Uh, I wouldn't hold it for long," Rosenburg said, jumping to her feet and walking over. "If you place it in your palm, you'll activate the doorway again, and then the closest door to you will become a portal to the Library."

"Oh." I dropped the pendant back in my pocket. "Daniel, can I talk to you for a second?"

Daniel glanced up at me. "Oh, sure, Jack."

He got to his feet and I lead the way to the kitchen. I stopped in the middle of the room, but he caught sight of the photos and walked past me for a better look. "Wow. Is that-?"

"Yeah." I ran a hand through my hair. "I've booked a flight in two hours. A cab'll pick us up any minute." I held up a finger, stalling the words forming on his lips. "We don't know anything about these people, Daniel. I'm not about to take their word for it that we can get home with this star thing until after Carter has a look at it and gives the okay. We're leaving."

"Jack!" he said, breaking through my lecture. I glared, but he plowed on. He had his thoughtful face on. "What if there really is magic? How else do you explain how we got here? I know, it may not be, but what if we're wrong?"

"It doesn't matter. We don't know enough about the situation here yet. I don't know about you, Danny, but I'm a little suspicious about how, because of magic, we're suddenly a third way across the country when we had no intention to be here."

Daniel sighed. "It is a little suspicious, I'll grant you that, but what if they really had nothing to do with us getting here? This is the perfect opportunity to find out more about when your mother was here."

"If they really are all innocent and everything, we'll come back or whatever. The point is, we don't know that-"

A wide shadow fell across Daniel as someone came to stand in the doorway behind me. Daniel's eyes narrowed in puzzlement before sliding past me. They widened. "Oh, shit," he said.

I turned and caught a glimpse of who, or more accurately what, had arrived in the kitchen. "Ditto," I said.

Whatever it was, it put the rhino things to shame. Leather and metallic body armor covered heavily muscled, grayish-green limbs. A tattoo of a purple Greek cross consumed in red flames began at his chin and covered his left cheek, and yellow eyes stared at us out of a scaly face. He was six and a half feet tall and took up the entire doorway. He held a really huge, really sharp-looking axe that was half-rusted over with dried blood.

"Hi, there," I said. I wondered if we could make it to the back kitchen door.

His mouth tightened into a snarl. He slapped me with his free arm. By slap, I meant he hit me with the equivalent force of a mallet pounding a gopher into the ground.

I collided with Daniel, and we went down in a tangle of limbs.


	6. A Normal Day at the Office

A NORMAL DAY AT THE OFFICE

Part Six of 'Father of Mine,' immediate sequel to 'Welcome to Headquarters.'

Summary: Jack and Daniel meet more of the gang and a bunch of axe-wielding demons.

-----

I could see the thing's face. He was snarling. I could also see his axe arm rising above his head. Too bad I couldn't do anything about it, with Daniel flaying to get free underneath me.

"Will you stop moving, Daniel?" I shouted.

"I will as soon as there isn't some big alien-demon-whatever trying to kill us!" came his reply.

Oh, to hell with this. I reached behind me, grabbed a handhold of his shirt and rolled to the left, taking Daniel with me. One minute, the axe was swinging down toward me. The next minute, it was embedded in the floor next to Danny's right arm.

We collided into the side of the kitchen isle. Daniel's knee rammed into my stomach before we rolled free of each other. He scrambled behind the kitchen isle while the big guy advanced on me, snarl still in place.

"Oh, crap," I said, moving out of the way just before the axe crashed down again, taking out a portion of wooden cabinet.

I swung out a leg toward his ankle, hoping to knock him over, and ended up swearing and clutching my aching limb. Ow! I will so not do that again!

"Jack!"

I looked up. The big guy held the axe high over his head with both arms. He looked genuinely pissed.

The axe swung down.

Move!

He had me cornered against the isle. There wasn't enough room to roll to either side of him, and standing would take too long. "A little help, here!"

A pair of hands clamped down on the big guys' biceps, halting the axe's decent.

Now that was more like it! "Nice going, Dan-" I did a double-take. Those hands were oddly feminine for Daniel.

"Move, now!" My rescuer shouted at me from behind the big guy.

"Moving." I got to my feet, slid to the right and came to stand with Daniel behind the counter. I got my first good look at my rescuer. It was the blonde I'd seen in the photographs.

She head butted the big guy, and he jerked. She spun him around and ducked as his axe swung with him.

"You wouldn't happen to be the cable repair guys, would you?" she asked just before she grabbed the demon's axe and delivered a kick to his mid-section.

"What?" Daniel asked.

"I'll take that as a no. Darn." She looked at us for a moment. "I'm Buffy." Her brow furrowed. "Wait, you're Xander's son. Shouldn't you be in Colorado?" She ducked a swing of the axe.

"Will everyone stop with the whole son thing, already?" I shook my head. Hear I was, in Cleveland, having an argument with a skinny young woman who was fighting the offspring of Frankenstein and a whale. This had to be one insane dream. Maybe I'd been infected by that pollen that made Captain Littrel go crazy.

"I suppose you're one of those Slayers we've heard about?" asked Daniel.

"Guilty…as…charged!"

If anyone was a Slayer, it would have to this gal. She moved faster than Carter, and Carter wasn't bad in a fight. Hell, this gal moved faster than Teal'c. She could just be stronger than him, too. Impossibly enough, she appeared to be winning against this giant demon-guy-thing.

They moved and moved and moved some more, going from one part of the kitchen to the other.

"See any really sharp knives back there?" she asked. She grunted, and there was a thud as she collided with the back of a chair at the table. "It's the third drawer – unh! - I think."

Danny and I pulled random drawers open. "Here!" Daniel tossed her a long, thick steak knife. She caught it and turned back to the demon giant.

"You know, that whole demon-Slayer thing seems a whole lot more feasible now," said Daniel.

"We'll worry about that later," I said. I was more concerned about us getting killed just by standing around like this.

Buffy grabbed the jolly green giant's axe arm again and kicked, sending the demon flying into the table and reducing said table to kindling.

I winced. "Ouch." Five minutes had gone by, and half the room had been smashed to pieces. Both combatants had slashes and bruises on various places, but as I watched, the big guy got to his feet amid the rubble and charged Slay-gal. Jeez.

The blonde backed the demon into the corner next to the back door. "Go!" she called to us.

Daniel and I hightailed it for the doorway and the hallway beyond.

"Get out of the way!" someone yelled from the front of the house. Daniel pushed me against the stairwell cupboard door. A rush of wind passed by my back as a second demon giant flew from the foyer and through the back door, landing amid wood and glass on the back porch.

Two girls ran past us while a third stopped in front of us.

"Hi, there-" I said.

She grabbed our shirtfronts and slammed us against the cupboard door. I grunted as my back cracked. She was brunette and looked somewhere around twenty years old. There was a manic gleam in her eyes. What was it with these people and being overly-threatening?

"Who the hell are you?" she demanded.

"Funny," I said, "I was going to ask you the same thing."

"It's okay!" Summers shouted from above. "They're the good guys!"

The brunette nodded, let go of us and ran for the back porch, joining the fight against the second demon in the backyard.

Summers and Giles descended the stairs. Summers, with a sword in hand, ran out the front door, while Giles came to stand before us.

"What's going on?" Daniel asked.

"Better yet, what the hell is going on?" I demanded.

"They're Ghastrach Demons," he explained. He held a broadsword. "We discovered their hatching grounds last week. I'd hoped we'd taken out all of them, but it would appear that the nest mothers had a few male relatives they failed to mention to us."

"Ghastrach Demons? Hatching grounds?" I repeated incredulously. "How many?"

"Well, there were about five nest mothers and approximately fifty eggs between them - that is, three are here right now-"

A sickening crack resounded from the kitchen. Buffy shouted, "And that's for breaking the waffle iron!"

Giles smiled. "Two are here right now."

"Well, that's good," Daniel said, hesitantly.

"Yes, except we think there are more of them."

"And that's bad," I said. "Got anything we can use?"

Giles led the way to the living room, stepped behind the middle couch and pushed open a chest filled with archaic weapons. I was beginning to see a pattern with blades. It made me wish I had my own knife with me. Or maybe a zat. Or, even better, a P-90.

I asked, "Got something a lot more modern?"

He snorted and handed us two crossbows and quivers. "Guns, unfortunately, rarely work on demons. Fortunately, Ghastrach Demons are relatively easy to kill. Anything works on them after a fashion, with the exceptions of magic and bullets."

"'Relatively easy to kill?'" Daniel looked alarmed. "A creature that can't be killed by bullets is considered to be 'relatively easy?'"

The British man gave a sort of apologetic shrug and headed back into the foyer.

I exchanged a bewildered look with Daniel. What the hell kind of place had we wandered it to?

We re-joined Giles in the foyer. Buffy stepped out of the kitchen and walked up the hall to us, hefting the big guy's axe. "Hey, Giles." She smiled at me. "Hi. Jack, right?" She turned to Daniel. "And you are?"

"Daniel Jackson."

Giles smiled. "You're back early."

She wiped sweat from her forehead and checked the cuts on her arms. "Kennedy and I were showing the rookies the best places in town to go to for info. Kurt - the Friend Demon who works at that bar on Whitchat Street-"

"-Fren Demon, and Wichita Street," corrected Giles.

"Kurt told us that the Jawstrap Demons were on their way here, so, here we are, and here they are."

Fren Demon? Kurt? I filed these away for later.

The three girls who'd gone to the backyard came back inside, and Summers and two more girls appeared through the front door. Except for Giles, none of them looked older than twenty-two, which bothered me as much as anything else about this situation.

"We get the last one?" the brunette asked.

Summers nodded. "Katie, Jasmine and I just finished with that one."

"Is that all of them?" asked a girl with dirty blonde hair who was either Katie or Jasmine. She was breathing deeply but not panting, and her grip was still tight around the handle of a double-bladed axe.

/Five are approaching from down the street. Five more are approaching the backyard. We've got a little time, but not a whole lot./

The words echoed in my mind and sent shivers down my spine. Daniel looked just as startled. At least it wasn't just me.

"What was-?" asked Daniel.

"It's Willow," said Summers. "She's communicating telepathically."

"What?" After everything else that had happened, I really shouldn't have been as surprised, but I was with good reason. Telepathy was something I'd seen before, but this felt different. It felt way too much like having Kanan in my head.

A phantom feeling of a tail wrapped itself around my spinal cord. I rubbed the back of my neck and tried to keep from shivering.

Daniel blinked. "Okay…"

/Keep seeing if you can find a spell that'll incapacitate them./ The voice had changed to sound like Buffy's. I glanced sharply at her, but her lips never moved. Apparently, we were in a house of telepaths.

/I'll see what I can do, but I'm not making any promises/ said Rosenburg.

"You said you know these guys?" The brunette asked Dawn with a nod to Daniel and me.

Daniel introduced us, and their eyes widened. "You're Xander's son?" asked a dark-skinned girl with black dreadlocks. "You?"

"Hey!"

"Could we have this conversation later, guys?" Buffy asked. She faced Daniel and me. "We don't have a lot of time. We're Slayers."

"And Watchers," said Summers.

"And Watchers." Buffy rolled her eyes. "We know what's going on and how to deal with it, but you don't. We're fighting real demons here, and we don't have time for hysterics. You guys need to follow my lead. Can you do that?"

A girl who looked to be about Harris' age who was surrounded by girls even younger than her was telling me not to freak in the middle of a battle. Against demons. The sarcastic response came easily. "Sure, we can do that."

"Good." /Willow/

This time, I did shiver. Did they have to do that?

/The five out back are vaulting over the fence now. The ones out front are almost in the yard. I'm in Giles' study./

Buffy nodded. "Alright...Kennedy, Trish, Dawn and Nell, you guys go to the backyard. Giles, Katie, Jasmine, General Jack, Jackson and I will go to the front."

Daniel and I followed on Buffy's heels out the front door. She ordered us to take up position on the porch, while she and the others came to a stop in the middle of the yard. On the street, five of the giant things stood directly across from them. None of them moved.

I loaded a bolt on the crossbow. Daniel copied my movements. He made a face. "I hope you can shoot with that thing."

"Nothing to worry about," I said. "I did some archery in college." I'd never used a crossbow before, but I doubted I'd have too much trouble…I hoped.

"And you went to college…when, again?"

I gave him a look.

He groaned. "Oh, this is going to be great."

My grip tightened on the trigger as I aimed at the demons. The two groups continued to stare each other down. I could just make out human hands tightening around sword and axe hilts.

A crash resounded from the back of the house.

The demon in the middle of the line sprang forward, and Buffy stepped forward to meet him. The others soon followed.

I pulled the trigger. The bolt slid into the rightmost demon's chest, and he staggered. Katie or Jasmine swung her sword and left a larger hole in his gut, and he roared in outrage.

That was my only clear shot. The rest of the battle was a moving mass of three girls, one British guy, and green demon-alien-things. My skill at aiming a crossbow was about even with Daniel's, which wasn't saying much. We did our best to hit the demons, and Giles and the girls did their best to point the demons in the direction of the porch to make it easier for us. The Slayers caught half of my misses and used them to skewer the demons. The demons didn't like that much.

Seeing Buffy in action against one demon was nothing compared to watching this fight. The Slayers and Watcher worked like a team, and they took on the demons like it was all in an invigorating day's work.

One of the demons broke through. With a roar and a raised axe, he headed straight for Danny and me. He had two bolts sticking out of his right arm, and a gleam in his eyes promised vengeance.

"Oh, boy," Daniel said before he scrambled into the foyer.

I got another shot off before I stepped through the door, but the demon ducked in time. "Upstairs!" I ordered, and I raced after Daniel up the stairs to the second floor landing.

The house shook as the demon crashed through the door, having taken no time to turn to the side to fit through the frame.

Daniel leaned against the second floor corridor wall, ducked into view of the stairs, and fired. I hurriedly loaded my own crossbow, stepped out of cover and fired down at the demon. The bolts hit his chest and, with a startled jerk, the big guy crashed down the stairs and lay still in the foyer.

I loaded two bolts, moved to the top of the stairs for a cleaner shot and waited. The demon stirred and got slowly to his feet. He looked up at me and snarled.

"Son of a bitch!" I fired both bolts and stepped back. Daniel added another bolt to the green guy's collection.

The demon glanced down at them. He took a half-step forward before his eyes rolled back into his head. Then I saw something that really made my day. As he crashed onto the hardwood floor, his body turned to greenish-gray liquid. The liquid evaporated, leaving a dark spot on the floorboards.

Daniel's mouth was catching flies. Mine probably was, too. "Did you see that?" I asked, just to be sure.

"Uh-huh. And here I thought I'd seen everything." He shook his head. "How could we have missed all this? How could…beings…like that be here on Earth without us knowing about it?"

"If they all vanish like that one did…"

Something tugged at my memory. I'd heard of demons before, and not just on Saturday morning television. It took a moment, in-between firing and loading bolts, to remember when. It was two years ago, back when I still commanded SG-1. We went off-world to P7-Pie-something-something. We met the locals. For once, they were nice locals, and nothing happened. We came, we saw, we left. That wasn't the only mission that went that way, but they were rare enough to stick in my mind more than all the times we'd been captured or tortured or killed or frozen or ambushed or served as public defenders or any other manner of nasty things.

The chief of the locals of P7-Pi-R-Squared warned me that demons wandered the town at night. I chalked it up to superstition but didn't stick around to find out either way. Now, I wondered just how factual his claim had been.

/Heads up, guys/ Rosenburg said, making me jump. /There's more on the way - five from the front and five from the back, just like last time. They should be here soon. I think that's the last of them, but I'm not 100 positive./

/Aw, don't tell us that, red! These guys have pissed me off enough/ the brunette - Kennedy, I think - said.

/BUFFY/ Summers' yell reverberated painfully in my skull.

The window to the left of the door burst inwards. A weaponless Buffy sailed through the shattering glass and rolled when she hit the floor. She turned and jumped back through the window. I heard scuffling on the porch before a demon came flying through the broken window. He impacted the bottommost stairs with a bone-wrenching crack. When he stood up again, his right arm hung limply at his side.

Daniel and I shot bolts into his back, making him stagger a little. Buffy jumped back through the window and landed a punch to his gut, followed by a kick to his head and another punch to his chin. He growled and blocked the next punch with his left forearm, and used the same arm to push her off her feet.

Another demon-Slayer pair backed into the foyer through the splintered remains of the doorframe. Neither Danny nor I could get off a clean shot. I wondered how many demons were left.

/Four total from this batch/ Rosenburg replied. /Ten from the next./

"Don't do that!" I said. "I didn't say you could read my mind."

Somehow, she heard me. /I can't help it. You're projecting./

"I am not!"

Summers cut in. /Willow? Find a spell yet? 'Cause we can really use one/

/Not yet. Hold on./

/We can't hold on. The next wave's almost here/ said Kennedy.

/A third batch just showed up on the spells' radar, too - at least locator spells work on them./ Rosenburg announced.

/How many of these things are there/ asked one of the other girls.

/Way too many/ Giles said. /We need to regroup./

/Ah, come on, Mr. Giles/ another of the girls said. /This is awesome/

/Yes, well, some of us need a breather./

Finally, something that made sense. /I agree. How about that Library upstairs/

/Library/ asked Buffy. /What Library/

/It's what the door in the attic leads to/ replied Summers. /It's the Watcher Council Library. You need a password in a book to get in./

/Oh. Cool./

/We can't all go/ Kennedy said. /We can't just let these guys trash the place while we're gone./

Giles asked/Willow, do you think you can find a spell at the Library/

/I'd have more luck there than here/ Rosenburg said. /None of these books are any help./

/Okay, then/ Buffy said. /Dr. Jackson, General Jack, you guys go with Giles and Willow to the Library./

As we talked…or thought…or whatever, the battle continued. More bolts flew and four more demons fell and dissolved into nothing, effectively killing all of the demons in the current wave.

A silence fell as everyone paused for breath. I looked down into the foyer and met Buffy's eyes, and both of us looked around at the damage. The foyer was completely trashed, and the porch likely was, too.

/Right/ said Buffy. She was panting heavily, but her mind voice wasn't breathless at all. /Someone get a medkit. Giles, get that book with the password in it./ She nodded at me. /General Jack, Dr. Jackson, Willow, go to the attic./

"General Jack…" I muttered as Daniel and I got to our feet and headed for the stairs at the end of the hall. On the way, we met Rosenburg, who appeared through a door dragging a duffel bag behind her. I grabbed the bag and slung its strap over my shoulder, and the three of us thundered up the stairs.

We reached the attic and stopped before the door that lead to the Library. Giles pounded up the stairs a moment later with a book in one hand and his sword in the other. There was a nasty scratch on his left cheek. He set the axe down and flipped through the pages of the book. "Ah! Here it is…oh, dear Lord."

A crash came from downstairs. I peered down the stairwell. The second floor corridor was clear, for now.

Willow motioned to the door. "Now would be good, Giles."

He winced but moved to stand before the closed door to the Council Library. "Hopefully, this is the right password."

"Hopefully?" Daniel and I said together.

He shrugged and cleared his throat. "Grease Monkey!"

My jaw dropped. What was he trying to pull?

Willow grabbed the book and looked at the page. She smirked. "And here I thought the Tweed Patrol never had a sense of humor."

"Yes, well, it does change often, thankfully."

Another crash resounded through the house. A rumbling growl came with it, soft at first but getting louder by the second. Buffy shouted from below, "Guys, look out! Incoming!"

Giles twisted the door handle and, miraculously, the door opened.

"Go! Go! Go!" I said, and Dawn and Daniel disappeared through the doorway as one of the demons appeared at the top of the stairs. I shot him, but it only served to piss him off. He growled and charged at me, swinging his axe.

"Crap!" I rushed through the door and pulled the handle, swinging the door closed. The axe soared over my head, barely avoiding my scalp, and embedded itself in the door. The demon glared at me from less than a foot away as he struggled to dislodge his weapon.

Double crap.

The back of his hand collided with my cheek. The duffel bag slid off my shoulder and skidded a few feet away while my back hit the Library's marble floor. Ow! That time I knew I felt some ribs crack.

The green giant jerked his weapon free, took a step inside the library and raised the axe. Ignoring the burning sensation coming from my side as best as I could, I aimed the crossbow and fired. My second bolt hit one of his arms. This time, he staggered a bit.

With a yell, Giles came into view, swung his sword and sent the demon's head flying. Its body faltered, and for one awful moment it looked like it was going to come crashing down on me. A second later, it began to dissolve, sending liquid splattering everywhere.

I tried to scramble out of the way, but I still got some of the stuff on me. I wiped a blob of it off my cheek with my shirt and gagged at the smell. "Yuck!"

"Are you okay?" Rosenburg asked.

I tried to stand and my ribs reminded me just how displeased they were with me. I hissed. "Just peachy. Can you get that door closed?"

Giles tried to pull the door closed and swore. The top hinge had broken and the door now hung at an angle, making it impossible to close it properly.

Daniel looked between Rosenburg and Giles. "What now? Can they still get in?"

Rosenburg winced. "Uh, probably."

She helped me to my feet. My chest ached like hell, but I could walk. Yep, definitely some cracked ribs.

The Library appeared just as Danny and I had left it, minus the rhino-demons, which were thankfully absent. We stood in the central corridor. To either side, open alcoves led to two book-filled wings. The entire place was still marble-lined, and sunlight still streamed through the concealed windows high overhead.

I couldn't hear any sounds of battle coming from behind the semi-closed door, but more demons would undoubtedly be on their way here eventually.

"Getting upstairs would be our best bet," said Giles. "The books we need should be up there, too, fortunately."

"Upstairs?" I hadn't seen any stairs the first time I was there.

"They're in the west wing."

He led the way into the wing Daniel and I hadn't entered last time. The stairs ran along the north wall. Rosenburg, Giles and Daniel pounded up them while I did my best to hobble quickly.

The room upstairs was as wide and long as the downstairs west wing, and large glass windows to one side of the stairwell provided bright, midday light. More shelves with more books filled this room, and there were some tables positioned near the stairwell entrance. Giles set Rosenburg's duffel bag down on a table and took up position across from me at the stairwell.

"I'm almost out of bolts-" said Daniel. Rosenburg reached into the bag and pulled out another quiver full of the things. "Thanks." He quickly loaded two more bolts on his crossbow and slung the new quiver over one shoulder.

Rosenburg dug into the bag and pulled out several satchels and glass vials. "Try looking for something similar to the demon locator spell, since that one worked," she told Giles. "Maybe spells that form maps, or need maps to work."

"Maps, of course." Giles nodded to Daniel. "Uh, if you would give me a hand, Dr. Jackson?"

Daniel set his crossbow and quivers down on the table and followed Giles into the stacks.

I took half the bolts in the extra quiver and resumed my position at the stairwell. "You sure this is going to work?" I asked.

"All depends on if we find a spell." Rosenburg tried to smile. "I wouldn't worry too much, though. If we don't find a spell, we probably won't live long enough for it to matter."

I blinked at her.

"Uh, will _Terrain Rituals_ work?" Daniel asked from somewhere within the stacks.

"Uh, no, rituals are too complex," replied Giles. "Try looking for spells or incantations, something to do with plotting an area of land, or…a-ha!"

A couple of growls resounded through the building from below. "Daniel! We're about to have company!" I called.

Giles emerged from the stacks. "Here! Gastra's _Geographic Spells_. That should do the trick."

Rosenburg grabbed the book, flipped through several pages and stopped. "This one looks promising. Oh, er, is there a map of the Library around here?"

"Yes, downstairs."

Daniel appeared. He and Giles grabbed their weapons and came to stand beside me.

She rolled her eyes. "Big help there. Guess we'll just have to make one." She grinned nervously and dumped a satchel's contents on the table.

"Bones?" Daniel exclaimed. "Do I even want to know why you have a bag of bones?"

She waved a hand. "Relax, they're rat bones. You wouldn't believe how many dead rats we found in the house in Cleveland when we first moved in."

This was meant to be reassuring? "What did you do with the rest of the rats?" I asked.

"I, er, think it would be best if we didn't talk about it," Giles replied.

The growls were closer. I saw a shadow move at the bottom of the stairs. "Whatever you're going to do, do it now!"

Rosenburg stared at the bones and extended a hand, palm outward. The bones rose to hover above the table. They shifted into place, forming a floating, three-dimensional representation of the interior of the Library.

My jaw dropped, and so did Daniel's. Now that put the chair trick to shame.

She glanced at the page and recited a few words. The bones lit up like blue Christmas lights. I looked to Daniel for a translation, but he just shrugged.

She intoned, this time in English, "Intruders here that shouldn't be, illumine them for all to see."

Four moving green dots, all on the first floor, burst into existence within the 3-D mapOne was in the central hall, while the other three were among the stacks.

"Past has passed, and present is present, but future is always approaching. Trap these intruders in the present. Remove them from the realm of time."

A small sphere of pink light blinked into existence in the middle of the map. It slowly expanded, growing larger with every second, until the map was enclosed within it. The sphere of light kept growing, moving faster now. It enveloped the table and Rosenburg, then quickly spread across the rest of the room. Goosebumps traveled down my arms as the spell passed over me. It shot through the walls and disappeared down the stairs.

I looked back at the table. Four pink dots were frozen in place on the first floor of the floating map. Rosenburg dropped her hand, and the bones crashed down to the tabletop. She took a deep breath. "Okay. It's safe now."

"Are you sure?" Giles asked.

"Um, mostly." She collected the bones and packed away all the satchels and vials, and Giles once again shouldered the duffel bag.

"So, we can go now?" Daniel asked.

"Yes." Despite this assurance, Giles kept a steady grip on his axe as he lead the way downstairs.

"What the hell?" I said when I spotted the demon closest to the stairs. He appeared to be outlined by a thick border of pink light. He was frozen in place and didn't budge when we stepped up to him.

I waved two fingers in front of his face. He didn't even blink. I smiled. "Cool. Think you could teach me that one?" I could think of a hundred uses for something like that.

Rosenburg looked apologetic. "I doubt it."

"Damn."

"Good job, Willow," said Giles. She smiled.

The other demons were just as frozen. The second one we saw was at the opposite end of the west wing. A third demon glowed faintly within the east wing, while the forth stood in the middle of the hall. He glared, blankly yet viciously, out of frozen pupils.

We paused in front of the half-destroyed door to the house in Cleveland. Sounds of clanging blades, breaking furniture, feminine grunts and demonic growls reached us.

/Everyone okay down there/ asked Rosenburg.

/Just grand, babe/ said Kennedy. /Find a spell yet? We could use it about now./

Rosenburg hurried through the door and disappeared down the hall.

Giles stopped Daniel and I before we could follow her. "Perhaps it would be best if you left now, seeing as we're here," he said.

It took me a minute to remember what he was talking about. "What, you mean the star thingy? That'll really work?" I felt my pants pocket and, sure enough, the silver pendant was still there.

"You sure?" Daniel asked. "You don't need any back-up?"

"Yes, quite sure. While your assistance has been most helpful, with Willow's spell, we should be saving the day shortly." He smiled and held out a hand. "It's been a pleasure to meet you both, though I would like a word on Monday."

Daniel's brow furrowed. "Monday?"

He nodded. "Willow, Buffy, Dawn and I will be flying into Colorado Springs on Monday." He looked hopeful. "Though with that pendant of yours, perhaps we could get there in a more expedient way."

"Yeah, er, we'll call you." I said.

Daniel handed over his crossbow. I told Giles I'd give my crossbow back later. I was a little wary about our frozen friends, though thankfully, they were still doing their impressions of statues.

"No need to worry. The Guardians should take care of them once we have all left the Library," said Giles.

"Emphasis on 'should,'" I said.

"Yes, well." He bid us good-bye and headed into the house.

I glanced at my watch. It was after 4 AM. My knees ached, my ribs ached, and I could really go for a nice, long nap. Not only had I gotten little sleep the night before, but I'd gone out of shape in the months since I'd taken the promotion to general. It would be nice to take a shower and get my ribs bandaged up after we got back to Colorado Springs.

Daniel and I looked at each other, then we turned to look around us. "Well, I guess that's that," he said. "Think the pendant's gonna work?"

I pulled it out. The star's points lit up, one after the other, and a door popped into existence at the south end of the hall.

"Looks like your attic door."

"Yeah." God, this whole thing had been unreal.

We walked toward it, skirting around the demon.

"How's your ribs?" he asked.

"Oh, they've been better."

We reached the door. Daniel took a deep breath, reached out and turned the handle.

The door slid slowly inward. We peered down into the steep stairwell that led from my attic down to the second floor of my house.

We looked back. The Library and the pink contoured, snarling demon were still there.

"You know, I wonder if those creatures from PDY-231 were demons."

I raised an eyebrow. "Where?"

"You know, the planet with that huge sculpture of a candle in the town square."

"Oh. Right. They could have been, I guess." I shook my head and waved him ahead of me, and he stepped down the stairs. I hobbled after him, wincing. "Do you suppose that guy on P7-Pie-something-something was telling the truth about the-"

A low growl stopped me in my tracks. Yelling in pain, I turned, raised the crossbow and fired. The demon, no longer outlined in pink, let out a cry of rage and staggered back. He quickly recovered his balance and rushed at me. I didn't have time to load another bolt.

"Oh, crap!" I scurried through the doorway and pushed the door shut as the demon closed on us.


	7. No Time for Primates

NO TIME FOR PRIMATES

Part Seven of 'Father of Mine,' nearly immediate sequel to 'A Normal Day at the Office.'

Disclaimer: "Who Stole My Monkey" is a song that belongs to Zachary Richard. The song was included as my way of announcing, in my usually loud and annoying way, that I'm Cajun, through and through. All of y'all need to check out his stuff! "Another Postcard" and "Living On My Own" are by two of my favorite bands, Smash Mouth and Queen. They have great music, too. Any copyright infringements were not intended. These song lyrics were used for entertainment and not for profit.

Author's Note: You wouldn't believe the writing funk I have been in since May. This part of 'Father of Mine' should have been published months ago, and I apologize for the delay, but though I knew what I wanted to go in this part, I just couldn't seem to get it typed. I tried, believe me. This is just a little snippet. More will come, eventually.

Summary: Who doesn't like monkeys?

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Daniel and I were squeezed painfully together at the top of the stairwell with our backs to the attic door. The demons had pounded at it for awhile, but they'd finally stopped. We would have investigated, but we were too busy catching our breaths.

"Do you…think…they're gone?"

"They'd…better be…" I replied, "…cause I have a bone to pick…with Harris."

"Sounds like a good plan…You know…after I see Dr. Brightman to…make sure I'm not…going crazy."

"Good plan."

I carefully got to my feet and Daniel followed suit. My ribs ached more than ever now. "Ready?" I asked.

Daniel nodded and hefted the crossbow. I pulled the door open and Daniel ducked inside, sweeping the crossbow across the room on the other side.

He then, promptly, sneezed.

The Library was gone. In its place was my dusty attic, filled with the same dust-coated floors and dust-covered boxes and stuff that had been there only a few hours ago. The sky was considerably lighter outside the attic window, but it was still dark.

After all the excitement, it was somewhat anticlimactic. "Right, then," I said and let the door swing closed.

I pulled the door open again, just to be sure. Attic still there? Check. Demons still not there? Check.

"I think we're good," Daniel said, rubbing his nose.

"Yeah. Maybe."

I turned and made my way oh-so-carefully down the two flights of stairs. The pain hadn't lessened, but I was miles away. My mind was, that is.

"So, demons are real, magic is real, and your-er-father or whatever is right in the middle of it," Daniel said flippantly behind me.

"Yep." So it would seem. God, this was huge. We were just there, and it was still so...weird. It was more unbelievable than aliens or Stargates. This was Earth, for crying out loud-this sort of thing wasn't supposed to happen _here._

Which, when I thought about it, was really conceited, or something. But…still!

I reached the kitchen and settled into a chair, ignoring Daniel's attempts to help me ease into it. He ignored my rather convincingly dark scowl and hurried off to the bathroom for the first aid kit. They were just popped ribs. They'd heal. There were more important things to take care of first.

At the top of the list was a call to the base, just to make sure nothing had gone wrong while we were in Cleveland.

The table was situated just next to the thin ledge that separated the kitchen from the living area. I was reaching very carefully across the table to the phone resting on the ledge when Daniel came back in with bandages in hand. He absently handed it to me as he placed the supplies on the table.

I waved his hands away and pressed the speed dial. The phone rang. Carter would probably still be at the mountain, looking for information. We'd both have something new to report, hopefully.

That was when things chose to get a little weirder…again.

The ring tone went _click_, as if someone had picked up the phone on the other end. What happened next caused me to hastily pull the phone away from my ear.

Unfortunately, this did little to save my eardrums from the noise wafting out of the speaker. It was music, apparently. Really, really loud music. It was so loud that, even when I held the phone at arm's length, I could still make out the words.

"/ Who stole my monkey, my monkey, my monkey / Somebody stole my monkey / Stole my monkey from me /…"

There were accordions, and what could have been a guitar. It wasn't a bad beat, really, but the words were a little…odd. Especially considering that, if my call had gone through to the right place, the song was being played in Carter's office.

"Who were you calling?" Daniel was regarding the phone with the same kind of expression he used whenever he caught me doing something stupid off-world. It was a look I was well acquainted with.

I disconnected the call and looked at the three speed dial buttons. Daniel was right next to me, so there was no point trying to call him. I could do that anyway and leave an annoying message on his answering machine. I'd get to see his face this time, which would make it sweeter.

Too bad we likely didn't have time for that. Why, oh why, after the night I'd had, couldn't things go back to normal. I mean, really. 'Who stole my monkey?'

Maybe Carter just had weird tastes in music she'd been keeping a lid on for the past eight years.

Yeah, right. And demons didn't exist, and I didn't just get transported to Ohio via my attic. Oh, wait-

Teal'c would likely be where Carter was, but I decided to try his number anyway. I crossed my fingers.

Daniel opened his mouth to say something else.

I held a finger to my lips. "Shh."

He gave me a look. I ignored it.

It rang. The phone rang, that is. Finally, it picked up.

I nearly dropped the phone this time. A male voice screamed something so loudly that I could have sworn it bypassed my ears and went straight to my unprepared brain. It sounded suspiciously like something to do with monkeys.

"/ I don't have no time for no monkey business/"

I hastily pressed the button. The kitchen was filled with blessed silence.

"What the hell is going on?" I demanded.

"You're asking me?"

I glared at him and called the base. It was the only option left, at this point. The base operators would know better than to be blasting obnoxious music on loudspeakers when they were on duty. Of course, I used to think Teal'c and Carter wouldn't do something like that, either.

Okay, maybe I could see Carter playing really loud music, but I would have expected something punk rock-ish. I could just picture her standing in front of my oh-so-cool-and-imposing general's desk, attempting to wriggle approval to play music loud enough to be heard by NORAD upstairs on the basis that it was instrumental in the performance of some new doohickey. If Teal'c tried to get similar permission, he would probably give me that half-smile of his and say the music helped him kel'no'reem or whatever it was he got up to now that he didn't have Junior anymore.

Anyway, to get back to the point, I dialed the number for the SGC operator. I needed to get one of those phones with more than three speed dial options.

Meanwhile, Danny grabbed his cell phone from the living room, slid into the seat across from me and tried making a call of his own.

I put the phone to my ear and listened to it ring. Across the table, Daniel did the same.

One ring, two rings, three-

We yanked the phones away from our ears.

The song boomed out of the speakers in stereo.

"/ Some chimps in swimsuits / Some chimps a-swingin' from a vine / Some chimps in jack boots / Some chimps that wish they could be mine /…"

A few clicks later and my eardrums were ringing in the absence of noise.

"Who were you calling?" Daniel asked.

"The SGC. You?"

"Sam. What's going on?"

"You're asking me?"

We stared at the phones.

After a moment, I set my phone down carefully on the table and rummaged among the pile of medical stuff for some painkillers. I swallowed a couple and leaned back in the chair, closing my eyes. With any luck, they'd suppress the headache that was beginning to form behind my eyes, too. I had a feeling this night was never going to end. From the sound of it, we needed to get over to the mountain.

"Okay," I said at last. "Here's the situation."

Daniel raised an eyebrow. He folded his arms and leaned forward, waiting patiently.

"We've got a foothold situation at the mountain. The SGC has been taken over by space monkeys." The other eyebrow went up. I sought to clarify. "Real space monkeys. They've discovered this odd tendency of pop artists to sing about monkeys. And now they're blasting all of these songs on the SGC intercom, bursting everyone's eardrums in the process, and doing a dance of happiness monkey-style, 'cause they like being so famous."

Daniel stared at me.

Which wasn't a fair reaction at all. After the day we'd both had, I'd thought it sounded as plausible as anything else, but Daniel was giving me that 'I'm-sitting-across-a-table-from-a-guy-two-springs-short-of-a-cuckoo-clock-and-I-haven't-got-any-weapons' look. It was another look I was intimately familiar with, though I was more used to encountering it in Danny's office.

He continued to stare.

"No?" I asked.

He blinked. "Twenty bucks."

That was more like it. "You're on."

-----

Author's Note: I want to thank everyone who has read and reviewed. Reviews are what keeps me going. I love getting feedback and sometimes act on the suggestions you make. However, I felt I had to put this note here to point something out. Many people have praised me for the idea of making Xander Jack's father. As much as I appreciate the effort to let me know you like it, it's not my idea to claim. This fic is an answer to a challenge created by AnimeRonin (refer back to the Author's Notes in the first chapter of this story for the entire challenge). Thank you so much, AnimeRonin, for coming up with this idea! It's given me yet another opportunity to have some fun ;).


	8. The Good News and the Bad

THE GOOD NEWS AND THE BAD

Part Eight of 'Father of Mine,' a short time after the events of 'No Time For Primates.'

Additional Disclaimers: _The Simpsons _belong to Matt Groening, Twentieth Century Fox and a bunch of other people. "I am not Yet Dead," written and composed by John Du Prez and Eric Idle, is a song from the musical _Monty Python's Spamalot_. If you're a fan of Monty Python, then you know that _Spamalot_ is awesome, regardless of whether you've seen it or not, and you'd be right. Any copyright infringements were not intended. This song was used for entertainment purposes and to enlighten the ignorant masses to the brilliance that is Monty Python. _The Simpsons_ references were also used for entertainment and not for profit.

Spoilers: Additional spoilers are for a certain episode of _The Simpsons_. If you've seen it, you'll know which one I mean. If you haven't seen it, you wouldn't know which one I mean. They're not huge spoilers, honest, Scout's Honor holds up three fingers.

Author's Note: Is anyone still reading this serial? Yeah? Yay! Geez, it's been a while, hasn't it? Don't despise me for taking so long to update, okay? I'm a former Girl Scout. If you've ever lived in the United States around February/March/April, I was one of thousands who sold you/tried to sell you delicious cookies. You can't possibly hate me…um…

Author's Note #2: Why are you reading this? Go read the story! Go, now! Enjoy! Can you tell I have way too much fun writing Author's Notes?

Summary: All is well at the mountain…until it stops being well and becomes the opposite, that special word that encompasses that what-the-crap-is-happening feeling.

-----

Alright. Worst-case scenario: the entire mountain was now a much shorter pile of rubble.

No, scratch that. Worse-case scenario: the entire mountain was now a much shorter pile of rubble, and a Goa'uld ha'tak was seated on top of it.

No, I'd got it. The entire mountain had been blown to smithereens, the space monkeys' ship was sitting on top of it, and a whole score of hairy little aliens were descending upon the population of Colorado Springs.

None of these were, in fact, the case. I can't express how glad I am of that. The ha'tak would have been a nightmare, one that I was afraid that even the best contingency plans, laid down over eight years, wouldn't be enough to combat against. We'd had too many close calls with the Goa'uld to lower our guard. Even with the _Prometheus_ constantly stationed in the solar system, there was always the chance that it wouldn't be enough. It almost hadn't been enough last spring, and I really didn't want to think about the events of last spring.

The space monkeys attacking Colorado Springs would have been a bit much, too.

Those were the various worst-case scenarios that I could imagine. I could also think of a number of not-quite-the-worst-but-pretty-close-to-it scenarios.

I suppose now you're wondering which one came true. Well, let me give you an answer that's going to shock you.

Nothing was wrong.

There was a glitch in the phone lines.

Yep, that's right. A glitch.

Or something equally technical for which I really didn't care to hear the explanation but which Carter half-rattled off anyway.

"And why exactly did I keep hearing songs about monkeys?" I asked.

"I…don't know." Carter made a face. "Not yet."

"Really?"

"Yes, sir."

The lack of a situation was a bit of a comedown. It was a welcome comedown, let me not be unclear on this point. However, considering I was running on adrenaline, I felt a teensy bit annoyed that I'd had to make a trip to the mountain instead of a trip to my nice, warm comfortable bed.

I began to crash. If I didn't get any sleep soon, someone was going to die.

Carter looked anxiously and apologetically up at me from her seat at a console. There was plenty of light to see by, but the gray paint on the walls gave the place a dreary look. This sensation was completely cancelled out by the view through the big glass window into the Embarkation Room. The Stargate caught the light of the overheads and reflected it, casting light into shadow, and boy am I tired if I'm thinking of poetic imagery at a time like this.

"I'm sorry, sir, but it's going to take some time to sort out the glitch."

"Fine." I sighed. "Work on it and then get some sleep. That goes for you, too, Danny."

Daniel stood on the other side of Sam's chair with his head cradled in the palm of his hand. His head shot up and he blinked rapidly. "What?"

I pointed a finger at him. "Get some sleep. Now." To Carter, I said, "Give me a report in the morning." I paused. "Later in the morning." I thought this over. "You know what, how about we make it this afternoon."

"Yes, sir."

I shuffled past her. I knew that the technician seated to Carter's left was tracking my progress to the door. The guard standing next to the wall tensed when he saw my grimace. Looked like I'd need to go see the doc. The painkillers I'd taken just weren't doing the trick. I'd worry about that when I woke up.

I patted Daniel's shoulder on my way past, and he started again. He fell into step behind me.

"Sir," Carter called.

I paused, but I didn't feel like testing my pain threshold by turning around. "Yeah, Carter?"

There was a pause. "Nothing, sir."

Okay. Maybe she was about to ask about Cleveland, though who knew. I didn't want to talk about it here in the Control Room. I continued to shuffle and gritted my teeth as I descended the three steps into the corridor.

Mad breakfast chefs, blue Jell-O showers and wacky phone connections; those were the highlights of life at the mountain in the past twenty-four hours. If only I hadn't dealt with anything else in that time.

I pushed Daniel in the direction of his on-base quarters. He didn't protest, though he did mumble a bit about a translation or whatnot. That was normal, so I ignored him. I waved off a number of questions after my health as I shuffled my way to my bunk. Once there, I promptly collapsed.

Hulk Homer smashed his way through the solid wall of my office. "Homer mad! Homer smash! Homer want donuts!"

She-Hulk, looking like an all-green version of Marge, appeared out of nowhere, carrying a crossbow in one hand and a sword in the other. She twirled and delivered a roundhouse kick to Hulk Homer's jaw. Hulk Homer fell with a crash to the carpeted floor. She-Marge threw the crossbow aside, straddled Hulk Homer and held the sword to his throat with a snarl.

I leaned forward in my chair and peered at them over the edge of my desk. Huh. That was interesting. I wondered if they came in yellow, too.

Xander Harris was perched on a corner of the desk. His eyes were pinned on the fight.

"Bummer," he said.

My eyes snapped open. The phone on the bedside table shrilled out an unasked for wake-up call. According to my watch, a little under an hour and a half had passed.

I closed my eyes again. Visions of angry green _Simpsons_ characters danced behind my eyelids. Hulk Homer sported a spinage-colored bruise around his left eye.

The phone shrilled a second time. I patted the table, searching blindly for the phone. It had to be around here somewhere. I was determined to find it, preferably as quickly as possible, and hang up on whoever was calling. If it was urgent, they'd have to come knocking. I wasn't moving otherwise.

I found the phone. Unfortunately, my search came to an end when my hand knocked into the cradle and sent cradle and phone tumbling to the ground.

The noise of the crash as both objects hit the floor was drowned out by the music pouring out of the phone's tiny speaker.

"/ I am not yet dead / I can dance and I can sing / I am not yet dead / I can do the Highland Fling / I am not yet dead / No need to go to bed / No need to call the doctor 'cause I'm not yet dead/"

I jumped, and then I let out a quickly stifled yelp of pain as my ribs lodged a formal protest. Ignoring them, I reached over the side of the bed for the phone.

The back-up singers joined in. "/ He is not yet dead / That's what the geezer said / No, he's not yet dead / That man is off his head / He is not yet dead / So put him back in bed / Keep him off the cart because he's not yet- /"

I replaced the phone in the cradle.

Someone wasn't dead. Well, that was always good news, I supposed.

I sat up slowly. I wasn't getting back to sleep now. The phone rang again. I ignored it.

My eardrums didn't stay protected for long.

Warning sirens boomed through the intercom. "General O'Neill to the Control Room!"

I sighed even as I got up and made my way to the door and the hallway beyond it. "Now what?"

I opened the door. I froze. I can't really say I felt surprised at what I saw just beyond my quarters. I was beyond feeling surprised by anything. Barney the Dinosaur could have walked in hand-in-hand with Apophis and a singing goat and I wouldn't have been surprised.

There was only one thing to say in this situation. So I said it.

"Oh. That's what."


End file.
